New additions to the team: Meet Randy Schouten
During the last couple of weeks, we have added further resources to our team; Randy Schouten from Holland, and Simon Lundmark and Timmy Silesmo, both from the Bachelor Programme in Computer Engineering here in Skellefteå.
Lars Alin, CTO, is pleased with the latest additions.
”The recruitment efforts we have made this summer have been very successful. We secured the desired senior resources early on and now we have completed the team with three very talented juniors. Randy, a former student of the IGAD (International Game Architecture and Design) programme at NHTV in Breda, Holland, will, together with Simon, a programming engineer, reinforce our front-end-team. Timmy, now a part of our back-end-team, is a developer who has distinguished himself through winning coding competitions as a student, as well as developing a game engine.”
We sat down with Randy Schouten, who has travelled a long way to be part of Gold Town Games.
From Breda to Skellefteå. How does it feel to be here?
It is very nice here! I absolutely love the weather so far, it is very refreshing to walk to the office in weather like this, though people tell me I will eat my words in a few months’ time. In any case, everyone is really nice and the environment is lovely, especially coming from a flat country like the Netherlands. The big stairs near the river is probably the nicest place I’ve seen so far, though I plan to take a walk around the nearby lake within the next few weeks as well.
How did you come into contact with Gold Town Games?
My girlfriend actually found it for me! She is following a Swedish game developer page on Facebook and saw a post from GTG. The location and climate were big factors when I applied for the position. I love new experiences, so having a real winter and living in a different culture was really appealing to me. Things moved quite fast after getting in touch with you and now I’m here!
You have a great passion for game development. Tell us about that!
I suppose that started at a very early age. I was three or four years old when I got my first Game Boy and this is where my interest in games awoke. A lot of other consoles followed, such as the Sega Genesis/Mega-drive, PS2, Game Boy Advanced and a proper PC. Around that time, when I was 13 years old or so, Flash animations were very popular, and I started drawing and animating stick figures in my spare time. I tried my hand at games too, however that was too difficult at the time. During a summer vacation in high-school, I threw away all social contact for a speed-course in Java programming. I continued programming after school began and tried programming a game by myself. Then I applied for IGAD, a game development course in Breda, where I was accepted right away. Many more games were made during this period and the more I did it, the more I liked it and so my passion grew!
What are you working on right now at Gold Town Games?
I am working on World Hockey Manager as a front-end developer. This means I recreate the interface a designer has made into Unity, the game engine. Then I write the code to make everything move and do what you expect it to. This might sound easy, but trust me, it isn’t easy to make everything buttery smooth and polished!
Finally, who is the best Dutch hockey player ever?
To be honest, hockey is not a very popular sport in the Netherlands, so I’m afraid I do not know. Nobody said I couldn’t Google though, so my answer is uh.. Jan Janssen (who has the most Dutch name there is)! Of course, I should really educate myself so I can let my colleagues know that the best World Hockey Manager team, the Breda Breakers, is coming for the gold!
